De-extinction Can Help to Protect Endangered Species

Climate change is connected with species lose. Humans should be responsible for climate change and specie losses. Climate change is the most important international problem for human beings to face nowadays, and it is a significant challenge across the world due to increasing human consumption. At present, consumers and industries are producing too many greenhouse gases which can cause climate change. Due to climate change, it can raise the ocean level, cause the loss of land fertility and the loss of species as well as pollute the environment. Some animal or species may not suit for the environment, because of climate change can influence the geographical and ecosystem shifts. On the other hand, climate change is not the only reason lead to specie lose, human activities will lead to species go extinct, because people continue to threaten and hunt the species. De-extinction can as a strategy and play a role in addressing the species, but it cannot create the same value and some ecosystem. Cloning can revive and protect the loss of species.

Consumers have responsibility for climate change across the world 

As economic growth and the development of technology, more and more people like buying online. They will spend their money on clothes, food, service, and vehicle and so on. The consumption of the goods will cause climate change because of releasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases nowadays. Although consumers may try to limit their utilization of resources at a personal level, the need for clothes, food, and electronics usage, the amount of greenhouse gases is still increasing. Not only consumers produce greenhouse gases, but also manufacturing and industries. The reason why manufacturing or industries produce a lot of greenhouse gases is that contemporary consumerism leads and motivate large corporations to increase their production without consideration regarding the impact of mass production on the environment as well as on the climate. If the market and consumers demand more products, the manufacturing, industries, and organization may exploit more resources in order to produce more products to satisfy the demand. Besides that, companies or manufacturing will produce more product because of making a profit and reach their plan.

As mentioned above, the current consumer behavior is that companies to satisfy consumer demands, so the loss of species is a main consequence of the consumers over-consumption. The increased need for aviation, the use of motor vehicles, the consumption of animal products, and the generation of food waste have caused substantial climate change that has affected biodiversity leading to the extinction of some animals. While a lot of blame may be placed on individual consumers, contemporary buyers may not have absolute control over the reduction of climate change regardless of the individual efforts made to promote sustainable consumption. It is inevitable to cause climate change during industries and manufacturing turn to responsible production. The ultimate reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change requires consumers to cooperate with manufacturing and industries.

Various species have been classified as endangered across the world due to human activities as well as climate change. For instance, mammoth went extinct because of climate change, it used to live in cold, but as the climate warms, mammoth is forced to move to another place so that reduces the number of grasslands. In addition, The black bear which lives in Asia especially in Korea is one of the world's most famous endangered species. This bear is rare and can only be found in Korea where its population has decreased by about forty-nine percent over 30 years. Currently, according to the survey of collecting the date of the black bear’s amount, the population of black bears indigenous to Korea is about fifty thousand bears. The bear primarily inhabits the tropical forests in Asia. While the population of other species is increasing, the population of the black bear in Korea is at this time on the decline.

Human behavior may lead to a decline the species because humans damage the natural resources. Using the black bear as an example, because of the destruction of habitats and irresponsible hunting and killing of animals for economic and cultural value, the populations have declined drastically. Deforestation across Korea has destroyed natural habitats where the Korean native bear thrives. Also, the previously mentioned bear has a significant economic value that is higher than all other bears. For this reason, hunted will kill it and get its paws and gallbladder and sell it, because its paws and gallbladder which can be used to generate traditional healing concoctions. To hunt more of this bear, the hunter will destroy its natural habitat, such as cutting and burning the timber, polluting the water. It will lead to the specie into threatens or lose as well as change the ecosystem balance.

De-extinction refers to the process of regenerating lost species by using their genetic material. Fundamentally, to facilitate the de-extinction process, an organism's genetic material is preserved and used to create a new organism that has similar traits to the extinct organism. Cloning utilizes the genetic information and DNA from gone extinct to bring back their life. Cloning is the method of de-extinction, and it is not just used in specie losses. Although the newly created cells and forms may have some notable differences that distinguish it from its original predecessor, de-extinction seeks to restore the ecosystem and promote sustainability in the ecosystem by restoring the lost cells and forms.

In the case of the Korean bear, biologists can obtain a cell from a living sample and match and inoculate into an egg, then the egg is eventually inseminated into a carrier of the same species. This process can make a black bear which will have the same traits as the original species. Therefore, the population of the bear could be regenerated through de-extinction. Moreover, De-extinction could address the issue of climate change and species loss by regenerating the number of species that are under extinction. While addressing the causes of extinction is a viable method of averting the extinction of the bear, cloning provides a quick and viable alternative that would regenerate the lost population of the bear. Thus, the bear can be protected from extinction through cloning. Cloning refers to using the genomic sequence information or forms to create the same species, this method can restore the population of the endangered species.

However, Sandler have a different view with dauvergne, she thinks that the familiarity of cloning once it becomes a norm may make human beings reluctant to conserve the environment and institute measures to prevent the extinction of some animals. Genetic engineering techniques such as de-extinction is considered hubris since human beings essentially control nature. It shows that people may not care about endangered species, so people may still pollute the environment and increase the greenhouse gas emission even hunt and threaten the animals. people will consider that there is the technological method to help the extinct species, and they do not need to protect endangered species. Universal acceptance of de-extinction may promote the destruction of the environment as people will adopt the idea that they can re-engineer nature into its original form. People don't know that there are many species which become extinct before it was discovered by scientist and biologist.

Furthermore, she thinks Although de-extinction will have the same trait as the original species, de-extinction may not have the same value as the original species, such as the cultural and economic. Primarily, de-extinction will not help fill the void left in the ecosystem following the loss of a particular species. Which means the original species has its own value at that moment, such as the black bear, the environment will lose its value. Ultimately, the loss of a particular species may lead to environmental degradation since the population of another species may increase, leading to an unsustainable utilization of resources. In due course, the environment will lose its value due to the extinction of a species. Besides that, de-extinction will bring an ethics problem.

De-extinction will push scientists towards a new invention in the field of genetic science, so that deal with the speice loses issue. primarily, to create a new organism from the genetic material of a pre-existing creature, scientists will be pushed to enhance their knowledge of cloning. Embracing de-extinction will ultimately lead to the creation of new ways to improve the resistance of existing species through cloning. The improvement of species will make species more adaptive to their environment and climate change. Consequently, the loss of biodiversity through extinction will be averted. However, ethical issues arise especially with regards to the redirection of resources towards de-extinction while they are meant for traditional conservation measures. Ultimately, the utilization of resources in de-extinction will minimize the resources which should be used in traditional conservation. Consequently, the focus on de-extinction will jeopardize traditional conservation measures, and more species will be lost.

Various ethical arguments against de-extinction suggest that de-extinction is not sufficient in addressing the loss of biodiversity, especially in the case of animals. First and foremost, de-extinction will not help to fill the void left in the ecosystem following the loss of a particular species due to extinction since the resultant organism will not possess the entire traits of the extinct organism. Ultimately, the genetically engineered organism may exhibit different behavior patterns and therefore, may not be a suitable replacement of the extinct organism. Further cloning is not a viable alternative if the environmental circumstances that led to extinction have not been altered. Ultimately, the newly cloned species will also go extinct due to unfavorable environmental conditions.

For this reason, de-extinction does not lead to the generation of a pure clone but rather a hybrid species that is similar to extinct species. Therefore, de-extinction is not a sustainable solution since the genetically engineered species may pose a threat to the environment as well as to human beings once they are released into the environment, and it is just as a strategy. Fundamentally, a genetically engineered organism may have exhibit unexpected behavior which causes environmental harm. Therefore, according to the above perspective, de-extinction is not a sustainable solution to the issue of species loss.

In conclusion, climate change has led to the extinction of many species in the world. Human beings are primarily responsible for the changes in climate, and climate change leads to the loss of various species. The Korean native bear is one of the species which have gone extinct because of human activities, such as hunting and deforestation. The example of a Korean beer is sufficient proof of species lost. The potential loss of the species can be prevented by addressing the issue of deforestation through reforestation. Furthermore, killing the bear to get its gallbladder should be banned to ensure that the species is not lost. De-extinction can help biological to address the issue of species loss by restoring value and developing science to establish new ways of preserving species. However, de-extinction is not a sustainable solution and just a strategy since it could make people reluctant in their efforts to protect species. Meanwhile, de-extinction cannot create the same value as the species. Moreover, de-extinction could lead to the development of new species that are harmful to the environment and human beings.

Sources 

• Dauvergne, Peter. Environmentalism of the Rich. MIT Press, 2016: 1-152.
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Summary for Policymakers. Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Vol. 3. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015): 2-31.
• Sandler, Ronald. 'The ethics of reviving long-extinct species.' Conservation Biology 28.2 (2014): 354-360.
• Yang, Jeong-Jin, Dong-Hyuk Jeong, and Yoon-Kyu Lim. 'Blood Chemistry Reference Values for Free-Ranging Asiatic Black Bears (Ursus thibetanus) by Season, Age, and Sex.' Journal of wildlife diseases 54.3 (2018): 575-580.